


Show Time

by witchfire24



Series: The Doctor and the Captain [3]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Backstage, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Julian Devorak's Route, Self-Esteem Issues, Upright Ending, dramatic julian devorak, it's suprisingly hard to tag G-rated fics..., julian is a playright, julian needs reassurance, m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchfire24/pseuds/witchfire24
Summary: The Apprentice soothes Julians’ backstage jitters. Also, he's dressed as a vampire, so bon appetite.





	Show Time

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt from@daedricprincessorigin and @shyomission

Julian parts the thick red curtains, takes a quick peek, and lets them fall back in place.

“Full house,” he says. 

“Portia invited the entire palace, her staff at the animal rescue, and all of her friends, and she has a lot of friends,” I say, adjusting his wig. It’s a few shades darker than his natural auburn hair, falling past his broad shoulders in thick waves. I dust some nonexistent fluff from the crimson cloak flung around him. The rich velvet is thickly embroidered with gold, with a high stiff collar rising up to brush his ears. “Besides them, we’re sold out for the next three weeks. They’re all clamoring for the man who told the Devil to buzz off, who made the ‘power of love and friendship’ trope seem almost respectable, who…um…got lost in a mangrove swamp.”

He smooths the ruffly lace cuffs on his billowy white shirt. “They don’t actually, er, know any of that. Plus, I’ve gotten lost in many places. Don’t sell me short.”

“Everyone and their in-laws wants to see the infamous doctor perform.”

“Nobody wants to go  _ anywhere _ with their in-laws, not even—”

“Not even a play written by Vesuvia’s premier leech collector?  _ Now _ who’s selling themselves short?” 

“I prefer the term ‘leech enthusiast.’ ” He gives a little laugh but fusses with the gold chain holding his cloak in place, looking nervous for the first time—or rather, truly nervous. He’s been vibrating like a plucked vielle string all day. For someone as good-natured as he is, he’s shown great skill in driving the director batty, pestering the stage hands and prop masters with last-minute requests, and springing around the costume room like an over-caffeinated grasshopper until the costume master pulled me aside and threatened to lead a strike. 

Not that she would. She likes him too much. They all do. This is the third show he’s done with the community theater troupe, but it’s the first play he’s written, and, much as he denies it, he’s terrified.

Not of performing. He lives for performing, be it to a crowd of theatergoers or to the crowd at the Rowdy Raven. Thrives off it. I’ve watched him adlib his way through an entire scene after his scene partner got sick on stage, being forcibly dragged off the stage after his fourth curtain call. But he’s never had hundreds of people listen to words he wrote, never published so much as a poem (or rather, one of the limericks he’s so good at producing out of thin air), and no matter what I tell him, he still doesn’t think the play, crafted from blood, sweat, and more than his share of black coffee, is good enough.

I reach up and fix his bloodred cravat, not that it needs fixing. He’s playing the Duke of Koretlaz, a vampire nobleman from the scattered city-states north of Pranka. I play his wife Queen Moiqama, the vampire ruler. He had originally intended the play to be a drama about the abuse of power, with the vampires being a metaphor for parasitic nobles, a tale replete with dramatic death scenes and battles, but it rapidly morphed into a domestic comedy replete with dramatic dinner scenes and pratfalls. 

“My dear Duke, would your queen steer you wrong?” I ask, patting his cheek. Unlike me, who’s covered in white powder to hide my natural bronze skin, he’s pale enough that he doesn’t need vampire makeup, just a touch of red on his lips and dark eye makeup. I give him a quick kiss, decided it’s worth risking smearing both our lipstick. “The play is well-written and funny, dear. And even if it wasn’t, nobody can trip over a chair like you can. All arms and legs. People go for that lowbrow stuff.”

He gives another little peek through the curtains. “I kind of, um…I kind of wish our friends weren’t here.”

“We could have hired a bouncer, but Portia would have found them a way in through the back windows.” 

“I don’t care so much about the opinions of strangers, and Pasha loves watching people trip over chairs and, um, Mazelinka will support me no matter what, but, er, Nadia’s so…she’s well-educated and cultured, and Asra’s parents have read a million plays by real playwrights…”

I really, really wished he’d chosen a different, earlier time to bring this all up, but more than that I wish I’d picked up on his nerves before today. “Julian, love, I adore this play. Do you think that I have good taste?”

“Well, you married me, so I have my doubts.”

I feel a flicker of anxiety, then realize he doesn’t genuinely mean it. Building his self-esteem has been a true labor of love, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the setbacks. 

I reach up and take his beautiful bony face between both my hands. He gently grips my wrists, his long fingernails gleaming in the bright backstage lights. Committed to the role, he’s spent weeks growing out his nails and had me paint them black. Something of a method actor, he’s also spent the past few weeks speaking in what he claims is an accent authentic to the part of the world Koretlaz hails from, getting himself kicked out of bed more than once in the process. Calling me Queen and wearing eye makeup I can get behind, but the accent makes me burst out laughing every time. 

I flip his eye patch up so I can gaze into both his eyes. His eyes dart to the stage hands, and he opens his mouth to protest.

“They’re not paying us any attention,” I say, turning his face back to mine. I kiss the corner of his scarlet eye. “Besides, they’ll think it’s makeup, not plague.”

“Ah, but Koretlaz is immune to that disfiguring scourge. He’s only susceptible to the common cold and seasonal allergies. Also, food poisoning, like that scene in Act Three where he bites that sick man—”

“Ah, yes, a comedic highlight.”

He starts to put his patch back down, but I stop him. 

“Julian, we’ve been over this a thousand times,” I say, pressing my forehead to his. I’ve gotten him to stop wearing the eye patch around the house, but he’s still self-conscious when we’re around other people. “It’s not any more disfiguring than your hair or shoulders.”

He winks with he still refers to as his good eye. “You mean my perfect hair and perfect shoulders.”

“I mean your perfect hair and perfect shoulders.” About sixty-five percent of his cockiness, as I had realized relatively quickly after our first meeting, is pure bluster. But with my help, the ratio is rapidly approaching fifty-fifty.

“Eye patch or no eye patch, you’re going to beat off amorous admirers off with a stick,” I promised. “They’ll have to be dragged from the stage, foaming at the mouth. Nadia will have to hire more postal workers to ensure your bags of fan mail doesn’t throw out our carrier’s back. The toast of the town, your dressing room will be choked with flowers—”

“A real problem, given the Duke’s allergies.” He taps his lip with a manicured finger. “Given how much stock I put in your opinion, I might have to rethink the costume. It makes me look too dashing, if I read between the lines.”

“Now he gets it! It’s completely unfair to all those people who paid good money for an evening’s entertainment and are about to come away with a hole in their soul, lives forever incomplete until you favor them with a glance. Best put the eye patch back. Tone the fatal allure down a little.”

“Like this?” He flips it back over his eye and strikes a pose, the one from the playbill. Chin up, shoulders back, familiar smirk splitting his face and making me want to slap and hug him at the same time. 

“I think all those unsuspecting people are safe now. The Full Devorak would simply have been too much.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “Now get out there and show them what they’ve been missing all this time, Duke.”

A bell rings. 

He pops his fangs in, grinning. “It’s show time.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Arcana blog @lady-of-the-leeches


End file.
